


Ever After

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Surprise Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 05:37:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16079543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: “I can’t remember the last time you asked me out.” They don't exactly take a walk down memory lane, but the quiet nights in Altissia help them to remember everything they have to be grateful for.





	Ever After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aithilin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/gifts).



> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/178193982652/nyxnoct-altissean-date) for [aithilin.](http://aithilin.tumblr.com/)

“Go out with me?”

It was the perfect night for it. Days of rain had at last surrendered the floating metropolis of Altissia back to its rightful evenings of sea-scented bohemia, the artists and the vendors and the midnight musicians reclaiming their posts after the stormy siege retreated to the sea. The city still smelled like rain, still shone under the moonlight like a glossy photograph under lamplight, cobblestones slicked to near blackness and reflecting streetlights like starlight, shattered and splashed underfoot.

From their hotel window, Noctis watched the city dawn as night fell; the golden streetlamps rose like little suns along the boulevard, the voices of the locals lifted like chattering birds at daybreak, and the smoke off the ovens and fryers and tiny, portable motors of the street food stalls curled up from the alleys like steam from a coffee cup.

Maybe it was the temptress caress of cooking food within the hollows of his nostrils that coaxed out the craving in Noctis. Maybe it was just that they had so few opportunities to enjoy the marvels of the cities they stopped in, and tonight, at last, in the precious grace period of silence after a storm, there was nothing stopping them from seizing the night.

Nyx grinned from above his shrugging-on coat, already dressed and ready to go.

“Let’s make it a date.”

Altissia had always been Noct’s dream world for nostalgic escapes – any place by the sea had been. From childhood getaways to Cape Caem, to ostentatious parades of royal welcome to the Accordon coast, the ocean-side utopias of Eos had always been the backdrops to his best adventures. While a languid stroll to nowhere might not have sounded as exciting to his eight-year-old self as magic spells of bouncing rainstorms or sahagin shape-shifting at the base of Leviathan’s statue, if he was with Nyx, it was bound to be an adventure.

“I can’t remember the last time you asked me out,” Nyx mused, linking elbows with Noctis once they set foot outside of the Leville.

“I know, right?” Noctis teased. “You’re usually the one doing the asking. Can’t get a word in edgewise.”

“You know I can’t help it.” Nyx smiled at him, tugging himself a little closer along the pulley of their linked arms. “I have a weakness for raven-haired royalty. Turns me into a babbling fool just trying to impress you.”

“As if I thought your vocabulary was the most impressive thing about you.”

Nyx mocked offense for the equally mocking insult, jaw loosed in an open-mouthed pout. Noctis snorted and slipped nearer, pooling his side into Nyx’s until they melted together like two shadows getting lost between the puddles of street light.

They lulled through the night like strangers, unnoticed and unaddressed by the like-minded ghosts they passed along the canals. Royal figures were a common enough sight in one of the most politically centered cities in the world. That, along with the lateness of the hour, allowed them safe passage from the hushed voices and hasty glances that used to expose them as “different” in the past.

“Where are you taking me out to then?” Nyx asked, once he’d recovered from the wounded outrage against his wit and charm.

Noctis shrugged, glancing across the lapping seawater of the canals. “Just out.”

“Wow,” Nyx scoffed. “Way to make a guy feel special, putting all that effort into figuring out the perfect date destination for me. No wonder I ended up doing most of the date planning.”

“Ah, so this is what you meant by ‘babbling like a fool.’ How did I ever end up saying yes to you?”

“That’s it. I’m dumping you in the canal. Maybe the fish will think you’re a better date.”

Nyx feinted left towards the edge of the canal, dragging Noctis along like he was making good on his threat. Noctis couldn’t keep a straight face, laughing as he pulled Nyx back beneath the bright shade of the streetlamps.

“Fine, fine. I’ll find you some food. Will that satisfy your bloodlust?”

It took no time at all to sniff out a street vendor for a midnight snack, all lanes leading to Leviathan’s bronze fins and all the offerings clustered at her seat in the central plaza. Noctis picked out the smell of burnt sugar and vanilla from the cluster of colorful carts rolled out to the night. The crepe salesman was as sunny as a breakfast cereal as he served them – strung out on too many cups of coffee to make it through the night, Noct figured. But neither his craft nor his customer service suffered from an overdose of caffeine, offering a pleasant smile in exchange for gil and a complementary “have nice evening” to go with their treat.

“Better?”

Nyx’s response was unintelligible around a mouthful of thin dough, folds of sweet custard, and scattered drops of juicy berries. But he sounded appeased enough for the outing. They paused at the covered bridge over the central canal, cloaked in coppery shadows funneled in from the streets. Noctis heard crickets instead of wise-cracking cackles, not sure where the musical insects were hiding along the avenue, absent of any shrubbery. The night was cool, breezeless, but not stagnant. Still. Peaceful.

Even after so long at peace, he still wasn’t quite used to that sensation. Not enough that he didn’t notice it when it folded around him like this. Never used to it enough not to recognize how lucky he was to have it.

“I do remember the last time I asked you out,” Noctis said as they each pulled apart the delicate confection between them, licking powdered sugar from his thumb. “It was the first time. The first date we ever went on.”

Nyx furrowed his brow like he didn’t remember, but the corners of his mouth betrayed the seriousness of his expression, twitching upwards in spite of his best efforts to keep them straight. “Are you sure? Because I distinctly recall sweeping you off your feet with my good looks and charm.”

“I seem to recall that, too. But I recall it _after_ I asked you to dinner.”

Nyx smiled, no longer trying to hide the fondness of memory softening his lips. “That’s right. You asked me to this dark and foreboding mob-looking place with the red walls and the tinted windows. And I thought that you already decided how horrible of a date I was going to be and get the chef to put me into the next Bolognese.”

“Aw! Did you really think that?” Noctis asked, half hilarity and half aghast.

Nyx chuckled, shrugging. “First date with the Crown Prince of Lucis, I figured it was going to come with a cost.” Nyx paused in his snacking then, swallowing a sweet bite before reaching sugared fingers over to thumb through Noct’s long hair. “As far as first dates go, how did I do?”

“Pretty good, I’d say.” Noctis reached up to catch his hand in his, watching the dark light glow against the silver bands. “Don’t think I’d have married you if it went bad.”

“And here I was afraid you might just be pitying this babbling fool.”

Nyx drew the matching rings to his lips, fingers entwined in Noct’s and kissing just above the band on his finger. The night was cool, but all around him, Noctis felt warmth, tingling beneath his skin and raising the edges of his lips in a smile he still wasn’t used to wearing as much as he did. He remembered when he used to practice it, when he was so uncertain about his own happiness that it didn’t come naturally to him. He remembered forgetting what happiness looked like from underneath the shadow of his destiny.

He never forgot, lest losing those bitter moments made him forget how precious his life was now. Crowned King of Light and alive to see it, to bloom in it rather than wither away to the ashes. To be here in the city of his childhood fantasies, tasting crepes at midnight when most would have gone for the wine, married to the man he used to be so afraid of losing every day that he loved him.

“Every king needs his fool,” Noctis teased. “I need you around to put a smile on my face, you know.”

“Oh? Is that all I am? A monkey dancing around for your amusement?” Nyx quirked a brow at him, baiting him into another barb so he could retaliate in kind – though Nyx’s form of retaliation these days was less stabby more sexy.

“You definitely keep me entertained,” Noctis indulged him with a snarky response, turning to wrap his arms round his neck, a motion as instinctive as the rain passing the city, slipping through sky unquestioning and unchanging. “You know I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

“Only the best for my little king.”

Noctis still gave him kisses for every iteration of his name, grazing the old, silver scars that faded to moonlight more and more every year. Nyx still knotted his hands through his hair in return, gratifying the lengthy locks with calloused fingers bound in the silver of a promise they’d made to each other so long ago now.

Noctis still remembered that, too. He remembered every reason to be grateful for the peace he felt now, clothes in the quiet darkness of Altissia, as in love with his husband as the first date he ever took him on.

Though the kisses were in better experience than those fumbling first dates. So good and distracting that the cone of crepe and cream was left to guard the balustrade while the two of them made the shadows their own.

**Author's Note:**

> The surprise ending is that they've been married forever... that's not really a surprise, is it?


End file.
